Actress allegedly struck stopped car

Baton Rouge police on Saturday arrested a former runner-up on the TV show “Survivor: Gabon” after she allegedly drove her car into a stopped car on Government Street, then failed to comply with instructions for a breath test.

Actress Jessica Michele Kiper, 34, 2050 N. Ivar Ave., Los Angeles, was booked into Parish Prison on counts of driving while intoxicated, failure to maintain control and reckless operation of a vehicle.

Police spokesman Cpl. Don Coppola Jr. said Sunday that the incident occurred at about 1:30 a.m. Saturday in the 2800 block of Government Street.

Police are not sure why Kiper was downtown at that hour or what she had been doing prior to the accident, Coppola said.

No injuries were reported, he said.

Officers from the DWI Task Force asked Kiper twice to take a breath test, Coppola said, but both times she failed to follow instructions, preventing the police from getting an accurate reading on the two attempts.

Kiper “showed signs of impairment due to alcoholic beverage consumption” and displayed “poor balance (and) red bloodshot eyes,” according to the affidavit of probable cause supporting her arrest.

Kiper was released from Parish Prison on Saturday on a $3,200 bail, prison records show.

On her Twitter account Sunday morning, Kiper wrote, “My friends are being so sweet and positive to me right now. I am taking this well … but it’s because I needed a realty slap. #check!”

Kiper, also known as Sugar, placed second to Maine physics teacher Robert “Bob” Crowley in “Survivor: Gabon” in 2008.

She also participated in “Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains” two years later.

Among her television appearances, Kiper was on the VH1 reality show “Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew” in 2011. According to that show’s website, Kiper suffered from a “severe addiction to alcohol and marijuana” and was “not sober for one day in the two years before joining the show.”

Kiper’s other TV appearances include “For Your Love” in 1999-2000, “Gilmore Girls” in 2002 and “Weeds” in 2012.

Among her movie roles were parts in “Sorority Boys” in 2002 and “Sex and Death 101” in 2007, according to her Internet Movie Database page.